Though an act for settling orthodox ministers in the province was passed shortly after the establishment of the English colonial system (for of course, the English was the orthodox church in colonial times), those sons of Cromwellian soldiers, Quaker refugees, and Independents did not at first take kindly to a State church, and good Parson Bartow . . . did not even wear a surplice. Many of the people were gradually won over to mother church, so far as a student can judge from reading the good minister's letters to the Society in England, more by his own loving kindness and self-respect rather than any inherent love those hard-working farmers had for the Church of England. Besides, the Quakers had established their meeting-house in the town almost as early as the Church of England edifice was erected, and its graveyard is still to be found, adjoining the Episcopal churchyard, though the meetinghouse and those who were moved by^the Spirit within it have long^since departed.

In a previous chapter, in connection with our account of the foundation of the settlement of Westchester, we have reproduced from the journal of one of the Dutch commissioners who visited the place in 1050 a description of the forms of worship then in vogue there, from which it appears that there was no officiating clergyman, and that the exercises were conducted in homely fashion. Not until 1084 was any formal measure taken to procure a minister. It was then voted in town meeting (April 2) " that the Justices and Vestrymen of Westchester, Eastchester, and Yonckers do accept of Mr. Warham Mather as our minister for one whole year; and that he shall have sixty pound, in country produce at money price, for his salary, and that he shall be paid every quarter." Apparently the arrangement was not effected, or at least did not endure for long; for in 1092 the town voted that " there shall be an orthodox minister, as soon as possible may be," and requested Colonel Caleb Heathcote, " in his travels in New England," to procure one.